Is God a Chauvinist?
I can imagine that this question is not liked by many people, but it is a great question. It’s at the center of what this blog site is about. Could God really be at the center of slights that women suffer all over the world just because He, the ultimate authority, said so? It’s a wonderful thing that an organization like CBE encourages Biblical research into exactly what God says on the subject. The same sorts of balances that two opposite sexes bring to marriage can also bring the same to church life — or to theology and Biblical interpretation, for that matter. Thank God for female theologians.
Just as racists are not necessarily mean-spirited bigots, chauvinists can be cool, community-loved, decent residents rather than raving lunatics. The question is no more outrageous than asking pre-1978 Mormons whether God was a racist. No, God is not a chauvinist. It’s sin that has marred humanity, including sins against women — not only individualized sins but institutionalized ones as well, i.e., those that are church enforced.
See Ruth A Tucker’s Women in the Maze (IV Press, 1992), pp. 23-24, for more detail.
I was going to say, there is a new book published called “Does God really Prefer men?” that I liked, though it was self published and I don’t think it made it past the CBE screen bc of none gender neutral langauge (oddly enough). but I like phrasing it like that. it offends people who thinks that God does, but don’t like the phrase it the way it is